1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to modular containers. In particular, this invention relates to modular containers containing particulate material where the containers are adapted to permit contaminated liquid to be passed through the particulate material for purposes of purification. More in particular, this invention relates to modular containers to be used in filtration as well as ion-exchange systems for purposes of water purification. Still further, this invention pertains to modular containers for use in various liquid purification processes where the container is formed of materials which are generally of low relative weight and substantially inert with respect to chemical reactions being formed therein.
2. Prior Art
Containers used as chemical reaction vessels in the treatment of contaminated liquids are known in the art. However, some prior systems rely on chemical induction and oxidation systems which require large container or tank storage capacities. When such systems are used, solid sludge disposal becomes unwieldy or the precipitates must be sorted and removed. Such systems are relatively expensive and large volume areas must be set aside which leads to wasted space considerations, thus providing increased liquid purification costs.
Other prior liquid purification systems rely on chemical deduction techniques. However, in such systems water recovery and reuse has generally been found to be impractical. Where water is the liquid being purified, such systems have been found to be extremely expensive in operation.
Other prior systems for treatment of industrial and commercial waste waters has been through reverse osmosis systems. However, the equipment in such prior systems generally requires very high pressure hydraulic pumping which dictates that the pumping equipment must be massive to service fairly minimal sized containers. Additionally, in such reverse osmosis type processes it has been found that such prior systems do not operate efficiently where a multiplicity of contaminating ions are found in the contaminated liquid. Thus, where a large variety of contaminating constitutents are included in the liquid to be purified, it has been found that reverse osmosis systems often do not provide for relatively pure liquid as an end product.
Other prior systems include ion-exchange structure housings which are generally large metal types having a multiplicity of auxiliary components. Such systems provided for relatively complex plumbing arrangements as well as unwieldy resin containers which has lead to massive space requirements. Such prior containers utilized in ion-exchange systems of this type provided for substantially high cost liquid purification. Additionally, due to the large size of prior containers used in such ion-exchange systems, it has generally been found that the containers were not replaceable and thus operating times of the systems were not optimized. Often, in such prior ion-exchange systems in-place regeneration of exhausted resins was necessarily part of the operating procedure. Such regeneration of the resin material provided for increased non-operating time of such prior systems thus resulting in higher costs for the liquid purification.